"Yes. Why?" asked Chiun.
"Don't you two know? The Amtrak contract with the freight lines runs out this year. Congress is fixin' to defund it. Amtrak can't pull her weight financially, except on the Northeast Corridor and a few other places. The freight boys are all bet up because they gotta give passenger traffic the priority, sidelinin' their consists when they got goods to haul, while Amtrak just blasts on by."
"So the freight lines would like to see Amtrak out of business?" said Remo.
"Sure as shootin' they would."
"Perhaps they are behind this outrage," said Chiun.
"That's a good theory. Except for one teensy little fact."
"What's that?" asked Remo.
"The freight boys are experiencin' more derailments than Amtrak. They're gettin' it worse by a ratio of three to one."
Chiun piped up, "Perhaps they seek to throw suspicion from themselves. It is often that way on 'Fetlock.'"
"Which?" asked K.C.
"Never mind," said Remo.
"Look," Melvis said hotly. "It can't be the freight lines. See those tangled-up rails? Somebody has to clean them up. And that same somebody has to pay for the cleanin' up. It sure ain't Amtrak. They don't hardly own a solitary stretch of high iron in the nation. The freight lines control it all. They're the ones eatin' the cleanup bill." Melvis suddenly looked around. "That reminds me. Shouldn't the Hulcher boys be here by now? What's keepin' them?"
Remo asked, "Who are they?"
"Hulcher. They're only the kings of rerailin' train sets. You saw them workin' back at Mystic."
"You were at Mystic?" K.C. said excitedly. "Jiminy, that was a wreck. Wish I'd seen it."
Remo squeezed her neck, and she subsided, too.
Of Melvis, he asked, "Hulcher the only people in that business?"
"No, just the biggest and best."
"Every time a train goes off the tracks, they make money, right?"
"Oh, don't you blaspheme," K.C. cried, her buckskin fringes shivering in anger. "Don't you speak against Hulcher."
"Hell, don't even think what you're thinkin'," said Melvis. "They're railroad men. They wouldn't cause wrecks. Besides, they don't have to. These rail lines are over a hundred years old. They're bound to throw a train or two just from age and orneriness. No, Hulcher ain't back of this. No way, no how."
"Well, someone is."
"I say it's dope. Dope is a scourge upon the land. Show me a derailed GE Dash-8 or a flipped-over Geep, and I'll bet my momma's Stetson there's cannabis in the air."
"Either that, or the evil antirail Congress is at work," said K.C. with a perfectly straight face.
"Let's at least find out where this plow engine came from before we go blowing up Congress, shall we?" suggested Remo.
Chapter 16
The rotary-plow engine was out of Hastings, the next stop for the California Zephyr.
It was normally kept in a shed by a siding. The shed was still there, but there was no engine inside. No yardman, either.
"Maybe the yardman took her out and went the wrong way, accidental-like," Melvis said.
"If it isn't snowing, is there a right way?" asked Remo.
"Now that you mention it, no."
"They're too slow to run on the same track as a fast train, even going the right way," K.C. interjected.
"What's fast about the California Zephyr?" Melvis grunted.
"The old California Zephyr was fast."
"This ain't the old California Zephyr, I hate to tell you."
K.C. grinned. "It suits me. I'm only heading to the big Rail Expo."
"The one in Denver?" Melvis said, face brightening.
"That's the one."
"Man, do I yearn to go to that shindig! They're gonna have every brand-new kind of spankin' engine there is from every nation on earth. And a few old ones too."
"And I aim to bag 'em all," said K.C., lifting her camera.
Melvis cleared his throat and asked, "Anybody ever tell you you got the prettiest Conrail blue eyes?"
K.C. blushed like a beet. "Aw, shucks."
"Can we get back to the investigation?" asked Remo.
Melvis grew serious. "Allow me to kindly remind you this is an NTSB investigation. That there's an NTSB chopper what brung us here. And if you don't like it, you can lump it and walk."
"If we leave," Chiun said haughtily, "we will take our stories of the famed Kyong-Ji line with us."
"Now, hold on a cotton-pickin' moment here! I wasn't meanin' you, old-timer. Just your skinny-ass friend here. He can hightail it back to whatever he's from. You and I, on the other hand, are gonna do some serious confabulatin' about Korean steam. I ain't hardly asked all the questions I got stored up in my poor brain."
Chiun's eyed thinned. "I will consider this offer if the investigation goes well."
"Well, let's get a move on." Melvis looked around. "I guess that dang plow engineer is the meat in a cornfield-meet sandwich for sure."
A changing breeze brought a metallic scent to Remo's and Chiun's sensitive nostrils. They began sniffing the wind carefully.